He had a whole year to negotiate Crawford's next deal, not like he had to sign him at what was pretty much guaranteed to be peak value.
The flipside to that was Crawford just came off of a Conn Smythe performance when he signed his extenstion after 2013--not to mention co-won a Jennings. Both the 'hawks and Crawford had incentives to get the deal in early:
If Crawford stumbled in a year he's looking at a lot less, so it make sense for him to buy-in high.
If Crawford had another regular season like 2015 (another co-Jennings--and this one was not the sole result of a rock solid team D in front of him, 'cause it wasn't), the team's looking at a lot more to sign him.
2014 year the team didn't yet have Raanta or Darling on the books. Even if they were signed in as they were going into 2015 your goalie depth was an *unproven* Raanta and darling who were, at the time, unknown quanitites. The brass knoing that they had a Jennings-caliber, Smythe-worthy goalie who helped them get their second cup in three years gave the team ample reason to sign early and hedge against Crawford putting in a possible Vezina-caliber year, or even another Jennings year.
Plus, looking at the goaltending prices out there--Crawford is not overpaid. Schneider, Miller, MAF, Smith, etc. Crawford is in that grouping. Blame the market for the prices. If, per se, Darling could make Nashville Game 1 performances night-in and night out--he'd be looking at Lundqvist money, not 6M.
In other words, it wasn't guarenteed peak value.
If a team really wants to trade a player with a NMC or NTC do you really think the player is going to deny every possible trade?
If you know you're not wanted somewhere you usually don't make it a point to stay.
Perhaps not, but consider the alternative. If Stan wants to trade Crawford to the Hockey black hole that's Edmonton, do you stay where you're to wanted or go to a team that's in perpetual misery that should have been on the cusp of breaking out since our first cup--but never did because the team is as well-run as any bureaucracy? Crawford's not as old as Luongo and is not riding out to retirement.
Crawford still has the potential for another deal after this one is over. He's goign to maximize the return on it--and you an't do it in a place that looks stuck at the bottom. That makes moving Crawford
as cap relief and nothing else a dicey prospect if your intent is to keep all other 5m+ players. He probably won't agree to a deal stuck on a team mired in mediocrity from the top down (see also: Pullford/WWW era hawks), and outside of that, only a small handfull of teams can take on his contract without sending anyone back--if they'd even want to.
Asuming Sharp is moved for the cap relief (his loss can be as-easily mitigated as Crawford--if not more), Crawford could move since cap could come back on his deal, but IMHO I don't think Crawford/Bickell alone will be enough.
Do we know that the Blackhawks completely trusted Crawford at that point? He was coming off the poor series with Phoenix were the Hawks lost because Mike Smith was much better than Crawford. I don't think the Hawks would have wanted to lock him up at that point.
Perhaps not--but we should thank the Hockey Gods (Herb Brooks be thy name), that we're not stuck with Mike Smith. Since Smith signed his deal (which, in cap terms, affected AZ's cap more than Crawford's 6M affected the 'hawks in the 1st year), he has been far, far, far worse than Crawford--even the 2012 Sophomore Slump Crawford.
